Memphis softball learned something important in Trena Prater’s first season in charge: the Tigers can go toe to toe with anybody. In a wide-ranging conversation with 4 Star Sports Media, the second-year head coach made it clear that Memphis is done playing the underdog and ready to act like a program on the rise.
Year One Set The Standard
Ask Prater what the story of year one was, and she doesn’t hesitate. “Really, that we can go toe to toe with anybody,” she said, reflecting on a debut season in which Memphis stood its ground across the American Athletic Conference. In her view, the Tigers were “competitive in every single series” and had chances to take one or two games off almost everyone on the schedule—it came down to a timely swing here or a clean inning there.
Those near misses hardened the program’s edge. Prater pointed to missed opportunities with runners in scoring position and defensive lapses in big moments as the difference between a good story and a breakthrough. “Maybe we didn’t finish the job,” she admitted, “but we know that we can go toe to toe with anybody, and then it’s just about us playing clean softball and stepping up and executing when we get opportunities to score a run.” That message took tangible form late, when Memphis grabbed a long-awaited win in the American tournament—one of the first in six to eight years—and then went pitch-for-pitch with ECU in a game that swung on a single mistake.
“We’re really proud of what we were able to do at the end of the season,” Prater said, still replaying that ECU game in her mind. One pitch, she believes, was the difference between bowing out and pulling off another upset that might have changed the tone of the offseason. Instead, it became fuel. “You never know,” she said, already looking forward. “So, really excited about what we will be able to do this season.”
Oklahoma, Relationships, And The City
That excitement shows up most clearly in the schedule. Memphis didn’t just add some name-brand opponents; the Tigers landed the sport’s blueprint. Oklahoma, the standard of modern college softball and a program that has stacked national titles in unprecedented fashion, will visit the Tigers’ home field in 2026.
“When you have that goal, you have to know that that is a big deal, right?” Prater said. “They’re kind of the blueprint of what being a national champion looks like… and to be able to repeat it consecutively for three, four years is unheard of, and to have them come to our home field is a big deal. And we’re excited about that.” That series is not a fluke. Assistant coach Erin Arevalo was a volunteer coach with the Sooners in 2020 when they won a national championship in the bubble, and Prater’s own playing and coaching journey—through the SEC and the professional ranks—has filled her phone with numbers from top-50 and top-100 programs.
“Really, this game, just like in anything, it’s about relationships,” she said. “I’ve relationships with a lot of coaches… so I know a lot of the people that are in the top 50 in the country, top 100, all those things.” But she’s quick to stress this isn’t just about her network or a scheduling notch on the belt. For Prater, Oklahoma coming to town is as much a love letter to Memphis as it is a measuring stick for her team.
“It’s really about the City of Memphis, too, for them to bring their athletes here,” she said. She lit up when talking about visiting teams getting to feel the city’s culture, history, and energy in ways they never would if they weren’t coming in to compete. “It’s really not necessarily just about me and my relationships, it’s about the City of Memphis and what we bring and the history that we have, that other teams from different parts of the country can come and experience that they ordinarily wouldn’t if they weren’t coming to play a sport,” she said. “So kudos to the city for being who we are, and then the softball is the bonus.”
As for what comes next, Prater noted that, like football and other sports, softball scheduling often works on a home-and-home rhythm. “Usually that’s the thing—like they’ll come, and we’ll be like, alright, we’ll return a game to you next year or in two years or whatever that looks like,” she said. For Memphis, that means stepping into some of the toughest venues in the country and not blinking.
A Faster, Deeper 2026 Roster
On the field, Prater believes fans will see a different kind of Memphis team in 2026—one that is deeper, faster, and more versatile. It starts with the bats. “Yeah, believe me, Neely Taylor is the highest batter that we have returning this year,” she said. Taylor is on her way back from injury, and Prater is hopeful she’ll get the green light to travel when the Tigers head to Arizona.
Alongside Taylor, the Tigers bring back key offensive pieces in Kennedy Semien and Taniyah Brown. Simeon and Taylor were among the top two offensive producers last season, and Brown, who battled injuries and was “in and out” of the lineup, returns healthy and ready to be the threat Memphis expected a year ago. “With those three core bats in our lineup from last season and then putting other people around them, I’m excited to see what we’ll be able to do from an offensive standpoint,” Prater said.
The pitching staff, meanwhile, looks like a group built for a long season. Memphis returns Tania Still, postseason workhorse Rylee Duggar—“the stable force in the circle in postseason last season,” in Prater’s words—and Jericho Tate, then layers in young arms that give the Tigers options they didn’t have before. “If there’s anything that’s going to look a little bit different for us this season, we do have six arms in the circle that people will have to prepare for,” she said. The goal is to keep opponents off balance, to always have a counterpunch ready for whatever lineup stands in the box.
Behind those arms is a defense Prater believes can tighten the screws. UCF transfer Deana Cunningham arrives to anchor shortstop, teaming with Ariel Davis on the left side that the staff trusts. Senior Kayla Clement returns at second after flashing reliable leather last season. In the outfield, transfers like Paris Brannessi and Isabella Heins inject speed and range. Brannessi, a triple threat with the short game, slap, and power, “is going to be a terror on the base paths with her short game as a triple threat, slap, slapper, and just running down balls in the outfield,” Prater said.
“I think we’re going to look a little bit different,” the coach added. “We’re going to be a little bit faster, which is kind of my style of situational hitting, short game. And then we do have some people who can hit the long ball this year.” She and her staff have challenged players who were simply contact hitters a year ago to expand their games. “We put some standards and expectations on some people who were just contact hitters last year and said, no, we need you to do a little bit more this year. If we want more, I expect more out of you, and you can do it. So getting them to believe that early, I think we’ll see that.”
Eye Of The Tiger
If the roster is deeper, the mindset is sharper. Prater’s message for year two is simple and unflinching: “The harder it gets, the tougher we got to be. We’re Tigers.” She has leaned into that identity, talking often with her team about embracing the “eye of the tiger.” It’s more than a catchphrase; it’s how she reads her players in the most pressurized moments.
“So this year we’re trying to take on that Tiger mantra of the eye of the tiger,” she said. “When I look at you to put you into the lineup, or when I walk to that circle, I need to see that eye of the tiger to let me know, like, hey, coach, I got you. We got this.” That look tells her who wants the ball, who wants the bat, and who is ready to live in the moment instead of shrinking from it.
She also refuses to let the schedule become an excuse. “Nothing’s going to be easy,” Prater said. “The schedule is what it is. It’s no secret. They’ve known since last year what it was going to be. And now it’s about what do you do when you get out there and go toe to toe with the people that you’re not on paper supposed to beat?” Her answer is to strip the game down to its essentials: play 21 outs, play clean, and cash in with runners in scoring position. “That’s how simple I’m trying to keep it,” she said. “Everybody else is going to make it bigger than that. But if we can simplify it, it doesn’t matter who’s on the other side.”
That standard doesn’t change with the name on the other jersey. “Whether we play Oklahoma 56 times, the expectation is still to try to compete and win,” Prater said. “If you’re playing little girls on the poor, your job is to win. And now we’re going to run up the score. We’re not having mercy on anyone because no one’s going to have mercy on us. And that’s just how our mentality has to be this season.”
Why Memphis, Why Now
Underneath the edge is a coach very much at home. “It’s been great,” Prater said of her time in Memphis so far. “This athletic department is full of great coaches, winners.” She praised athletics director Dr. Scott for reorganizing the department and singled out senior sport administrator Terrence Lawley and Jaylen, her second sports contact, as pillars of the support system around softball.
She sees success all around her—on the pitch with Coach Brooks and Memphis soccer, across the road with Coach Penny and men’s basketball, on the field with a new football staff—and wants softball to match that energy. “It’s just an exciting time to be at Memphis,” Prater said. “Coming in last year to see all the success that everybody was able to have, and then us like really trying to just do our part.”
Her vision is unapologetically ambitious. “I feel like I have the resources that I need to continue to build a top 25 team, and that’s like my long-term goal,” she said. For Prater and her staff, the mission is clear: build it, reach it, then sustain it. “How do we get there, and then how do you sustain it once you do get to where your goals are? That’s my job. That’s my mission. That’s a coaching staff’s mission. Like how do we recruit better than what we have, and that’s our goal year in and year out,” she said.
Memphis softball is still early in the Prater era, but the blueprint is unmistakable. Schedule anybody. Compete with everybody. Represent the city. And carry the eye of the tiger into every pitch, every at-bat, every inning.
